


wounded in love

by dollylux



Category: Eyewitness (US TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Homeless, Gutterpunks, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Malnutrition, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:52:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8989399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: James meets a kid who just won't quit him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Exaggerated_Specificity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/gifts), [homo_pink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homo_pink/gifts), [saltandbyrne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/gifts), [riyku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/gifts).



> day eight of 12 days of xmas challenge. prompt: the boxcars empty and the track dead ends // but they'll be selling tickets til the world ends (from [gold dust by audrey lambert](http://hellopoetry.com/poem/910568/gold-dust/))
> 
> (title from 'a hard rain's a-gonna fall' by bobby dylan.)
> 
> for my loves. <3

"J, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon!"

James can feel the cold air rushing through his lungs, burning and sending hot plumes of white out of his parted mouth. His legs are long and he's always been a fast runner, but he sprained his ankle last month falling through the floor in a squat house, and it still hurts like fuck.

He can hear the cops screaming behind him and he prays one of them doesn't pull their gun out just because they're having a bad night. The broken sole of his shoe catches on gravel and he stumbles, nearly face-planting.

Peabody and Dynamo are still yelling from the train, their voices getting farther and farther away.

"Fuck," he whispers in a sharp twist of real fear, and he can hear the rattle of handcuffs on the pigs' belts as they close in on him. A hand lands hard on his shoulder and yanks him back, turning his ankle again as he’s shoved down into the muddy gravel.

There’s a sudden huff and the pressure is off of him, and his instincts are too strong to do anything but react.

He jumps up and takes off again, not looking back at the noises behind him, the struggle, and at whoever takes off after him, somebody small and fast as shit.

James lunges at the train and catches the handle of a car whose door is rattling, just barely open. He pulls it open with gritted teeth and turns just in time to see a kid with heartbreaker curls and the biggest eyes James has ever seen, a small, pale hand reaching up for him in the dark.

James sighs.

“Kid, goddamnit,” he huffs, holding onto the handle and reaching down with his fingerless-gloved hand and grabbing the kid’s, snatching him right up off the ground and into the safety of the car. They both look back from the open doorway, breathing hard and loud, and watch the cops struggle back to their feet and try to catch up with a moving train.

James laughs, a bark of triumph, a grin pulling at his frozen face. He shuffles into the car and sinks down to the dirty ground on his skinny ass, closing his eyes as he rests his head back against the shuddering wall.

It’s freezing in here, piled with boxes of frozen meat patties, but at least he’s not in the back of a cop car.

The kid scuffs and fidgets around the car for a minute, skittery like a cat, and James cracks an eye open to watch him. He’s wearing a hoodie and some jeans that have had a few owners, a pair of Vans that look vintage 90s and a backpack that’s being held together by duct tape and luck.

He’s definitely not part of any Family, none that James knows anyway. None of the gutterpunk kids he knows looks that clean.

“Stop followin’ me,” is all James can think to say, his eyes slipping closed again. He reaches down to scratch at his leg under his boot, thinking about how he wishes it was warm out so he could take the boots off for awhile and let his bare toes wiggle in the night air. He hasn’t taken these goddamn things off in two months, and he can’t imagine the smell when he finally does.

“I’m not following you,” the kid says in a small voice. He tromps over and plops down next to James in bratty defiance, but he’s warm, so it’s nice. They’re quiet for a minute, just listening and feeling the train rumble around them, taking them out of wherever-the-fuck, Iowa and further east. And then,

“I saved your ass though.”

James snorts, would roll his eyes if they were open. He scratches harder at his leg, feels the dampness when he draws blood.

“I woulda figured somethin’ out. Didn’t need your help.”

“Yeah, but you got it.” It’s the sound of a fighter, of a stuck-out chin, of somebody who’s owed something. James opens his eyes into slits and glances over at him, vaguely listening to the shouts from his family a few cars up.

“Thanks,” he finally says, not giving the kid a chance to reply or look smug. He hauls himself up and holds in a wince when he puts weight on his ankle again, throwing a final glance back at the boy before he slips out of the car and jumps for the next one, getting back to the group.

The kid doesn’t follow.

 

“People are so fuckin’ cheap nowadays,” Stella complains, sounding distracted as she counts the dimes and nickels in her dirty palm. “There’s barely two bucks here.”

“How ‘bout you?” James asks Klus and Stickboy, taking Stella’s palmful of change and adding it to his own. There are shared glances and tense jaws before they both hold out their hands, dropping some wadded up dollar bills and quarters into James’s hat. He watches them as they stare at him hollow-eyed and hungry, matching mouths and matching thoughts.

He knows they’ve been storing up money of their own, has heard their plans to get out, get away. And it’s not that he blames them, he just hates secrets.

“Dyna said she can get at least ten for the watch she found. And Peabody--”

There’s a scuffle-sound in the alley next to the dumpster. They all look over like a group of meerkats, edgy, tensed to run if they have to. There’s a grunt and a wet, slurping cough and everyone relaxes, turns back to their own business; they all know the sound of a backalley blowie when they hear one.

James keeps an ear out, can’t help it, feels like something of an elder out here nowadays where most of the kids are fourteen, fifteen years old. At nineteen, he’s been living on the streets for six years, and he feels fucking ancient.

Every one of his friends from his first years on the street are either in jail or dead.

“Stel, go find Dyna and Peabody and make sure they aren’t stealin’ from the pawnshop. Can I trust you two with getting us something to eat?” He keeps the hat clutched to himself as he looks between Klus and Stickboy, and their eager nods do nothing to make him feel better about giving them all their money.

“We can get five of those burgers from Wendy’s,” Stickboy says, shifty-eyed as a weasel as he stuffs the money into his pockets.

“Meet back here in ten,” James replies, not worrying yet about how there are six of them and there’ll only be five burgers. “I mean it, Stick.”

A groan from the alley echoes and makes James shudder, his throat aching in sympathy. He’s been that kid on his knees before, giving up his dignity for a few bucks and a bellyful of smelly spunk. It’s still tempting somedays, on the really cold days, the ones where he hasn’t eaten much in a week.

He’s going on three days now, and his rope-tied jeans sag low on his thin hips, nothing to catch on except sharp juts of bone. 

A sweaty fuck waddles out of the alley, looking fuck-eyed and pleased and ten dollars lighter. He starts up the street like he’d just come out of the corner store, no concern for the kid he’d left in the alley, for where they’re gonna sleep tonight, no guilt at using a needy child to get--

James actually makes a noise when he sees him emerge from the shadows of the alleyway, his red, chapped mouth still creamy with jizz. His hair is a nest of wild curls that had been hidden under a cap most every time James had seen him before and they’re greasy now, tangled. James swears he can’t be more than twelve with those soft baby cheeks, with those dark eyes that land on him and stay there, frozen.

James realizes that, for once, the kid hadn’t planned this meeting.

He licks his lips while looking right at James, gulping down the last mouthful of come and stuffing a ten into the pocket of his hoodie. He looks down like he’s ashamed and James grits his teeth, tearing his eyes away to glare at the back of the balding head nearly half a block away now.

He wants to find that guy’s grandson and fuck his face until he pukes and piss on him for his shitty fucking grandad to find. He’s so tense, so blind with fury that he doesn’t even notice when the kid disappears, ducking down the street in the opposite direction, hopefully off to find food and not another dick to suck.

James leans against the building and digs the half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear, lighting it with a broken lighter and taking a drag that’s a little too hard, that makes his eyes water and his throat burn, but at least he’s distracted now, not wondering where the kid went, not thinking for a second that he needs to go find him.

Not at fucking all.

 

It’s fucking cold in Chicago the week before Christmas.

They shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have jumped off the train yet, but Dyna’s mom lives here and she promised a clean floor to sleep on, a heated apartment, at least for a few days.

Turns out Dyna’s mom’s in jail for making meth in the bathtub and the apartment’s rented to somebody else, and sometimes it just is what it fucking is.

They’re chased off of lower Wacker by a territorial group of lifers who claim there’s no room for their little family of six to sleep tonight. They’d walked and walked until finally coming to a massive underpass, and James had taken one look and known they’d find a little corner to tuck into.

A woman with a dark, leathery face and kind eyes takes one look at their group and nods, looking over her shoulder at an unoccupied spread of concrete not too far from one of the fires. James gives her a grim smile and a nod before leading his group over, all of them collectively dropping their shit and digging through their bags to pull out as many clothes to put on as possible.

The snow drifts nearly reach them under here, and the constant rush of cars driving by makes the noise and the light and the wind almost unbearable, but they’ve dealt with worse. They’ll deal with worse. This is fine.

James is pulling thread out of the bottom of a shirt with the intention of using it to sew up a hole in his beanie when he hears Klus and Stella talking, keeping their voices low so none of the strangers can hear their business.

“He seriously followed us here, too? What, is he like a groupie or something?” Stella pulls a cherry Jolly Rancher out of her bag and unwraps it, popping it into her mouth to suck on for a minute before offering it to Klus.

“Who knows. It was definitely that kid from Omaha though, the one who knocked out those pigs when Jamesy almost got grabbed. I was gonna say somethin’, but it wasn’t any of my business, so--”

“What wasn’t your business?” James asks, holding his threaded needle and his cap, but his eyes are on Klus.

“Oh, nothin’. Just that fuckin’ kid that’s been trailin’ us since Portland. These two guys jumped him back on Wacker. Guess he was runnin’ his fucking mouth or--”

“And you didn’t fuckin’ _do_ anything?” James snaps, jumping up and shoving his beanie on his head, tucking his needle back into the case and hiding his bag under the thin blanket he uses.

“What was I gonna do? It’s not like it matters. I don’t even know that little asshole. He’s prolly just some oogle roughin’ it before he goes back to private school anyway.” Klus is glaring up at James like he’s daring him to argue, like he’s been waiting for something like this to happen so he and Stickboy can leave. James runs a hand over his ass and feels his pocket knife there, the one his dad had given him a long time ago, that’s a little rusty and has too many stories, but it works. And it’ll work tonight, if it has to.

“You’re a piece of shit,” James says finally, calling it out loud enough that it echoes under the bridge, drawing the attention of a bunch of hunkered down, sleepy people curled up around the little fire.

He can hear Klus yelling after him as he walks away, and he throws up his hand with a long middle finger sticking up out of his fingerless glove. 

The walk back to lower Wacker has James so tensed from the cold that it hurts to move, but he forces himself to stand up tall, to look as intimidating as his scrawny, punkass body will let him.

“Hey,” he says to the group who’d run him off just an hour ago, meeting every single eye that looks up at him. “You guys seen a kid around here? Curly hair, not very tall. Has pink duct tape on his backpack?”

The silence that meets him is deafening, and he takes a few steps closer, ignoring the flinch of some of the younger kids to look for the bigger guys among them, the mean ones, the ones with bloody knuckles and addictions that make them forget there are people in the bodies they beat for money, for fun. 

Great guys to have on your side, but they’re dangerous if they’re not.

“How about you?” he asks a guy with a spider tattooed along the side of his face with fresh blood shining on his bottom lip. “How about you? Seen a kid with curly hair?”

“He’s over there,” a small voice speaks up.

James finds the little girl who had spoken and leans down closer to her, making his voice quiet to match hers.

“Where, sweetheart?” he asks, his blue eyes clear and earnest when he meets hers. “Where is he?”

“By the corner. Next to the lady with the flower blanket.” Her nose is runny and she’s got a sore on the side of her face, but her eyes are bright green and meet James’s like she’s not afraid of him at all. He gives her a smile, a tender one that he hasn’t wanted to use in a long time, and thanks her in a mumble that’s too soft, too grateful.

He can feel the eyes on him as he walks away, but he’s already forgotten them, already scouring the lines of homeless folks on the sidewalk for a small bundle with a brown mop of hair.

His heart kicks up into his throat when he sees the woman with the flower blanket, and the second he opens his mouth to ask about the kid, he sees him.

The kid’s sprawled on the sidewalk like he was thrown there, tossed out of a car window. His legs are tangled together and sticking out into the path where people are walking, and he doesn’t react when he’s kicked, jostled.

“Shit,” James whispers.

He crouches down in front of him, hands hovering, afraid to find out, to know if--

“He’s alright,” the flower blanket lady says. She’s knitting what looks like a bag out of a ball of yarn made out of cut-up plastic bags, her knitting needles mis-matched lengths of thin pipe. “Just knocked out. Those boys really worked him over.”

James looks back at him, at his parted pink mouth, at how dangerously pale he looks. His mouth is busted, his nails broken and bleeding from apparently scratching somebody, and James hopes to fuck whatever damage the kid managed to do to them, it gets infected.

“Hey,” he says softly, finally reaching out and resting a hand on the kid’s cold cheek. The kid doesn’t move, doesn’t react, but James can feel the weak, warm puffs of air coming from his bloody mouth. “Hey, kid. C’mon. You gotta help me out here. I’m kinda fucked up here myself.”

He grabs the kid under the arms and hauls him up from the sidewalk, trembling on thin legs as he works to lift him to his feet. The kid is dead-weight in his arms, and it’s shocking how light he is when James kneels down and pulls him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He feels it when the kid’s backpack shifts and slumps to hit James on the back of the head, and he takes a deep breath as he stares at the long, icy sidewalk that will eventually lead them back to the underpass.

He’s done worse. Done more for much, much less.

“Hold on, kid,” he mumbles, tightening an arm around the kid’s thin thigh and setting off in the snow, his ankle already swollen badly in his boot.

He really does need to take the goddamn things off soon.

It’s the longest half hour of his life, and he feels like he’s going to pass out before he gets there, but suddenly he sees the heavy shadow of the underpass in the distance and then he’s in it, out of the snow, sweaty and frozen at the same time.

“Jamesy, what the f--”

“ _Help_ me, Dy,” he all but begs, his knees shaking, about to buckle. A few of the kids rush over just as James drops to his knees on his own pile of clothes, and they work together to get the kid off his back and stretched out on the makeshift bed.

“Is he--”

“He’s fine,” James interrupts, pulling off his hat and collapsing on his ass next to the kid, his lungs burning, hands shaking hard. “Is there… water? Do we still have some--”

“Right here.” Peabody crouches with the massive bottle they share and refill, the lid already off. James drinks a few mouthfuls but saves some, keeping the bottle with him so no one else can take it.

The kid’s gonna need it.

 

James must’ve fallen asleep because he wakes up to a jolt from somebody that isn’t him. 

It’s dark out, and it’s so cold that he was trembling in his sleep, his insides quaking in helpless spasms. The kid is awake, propped up on his side, his eyes wide and terrified in the sporadic headlights from cars that drive by.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. You’re alright. It’s me.” James forces himself to sit up, fumbling around in the dark for his dirt-rot sweatshirt and putting it on the kid over his thin hoodie. He helps him get it down over his head, helps his frozen hands through the sleeves. He takes the kid’s hands and tucks them under his own armpits for warmth, shuffling closer until their knees are touching.

“Jamesy,” the boy says softly, all the fight gone out of him. “How… how did you--”

“Ain’t fair that you know my name and I don’t know yours. You better tell me or I’m just gonna call you Curly Sue.” 

It works like a charm because the kid’s eyes light up, a smile pulling at his busted, swollen mouth, fingers wiggling where they’re buried in James’s pits. 

“I think I like that better anyway,” the kid says.

“C’mon!” James laughs, keeping his voice quiet so he doesn’t wake anyone else. He doesn’t know what time it is, but after dark is bedtime when you’re homeless. No use being awake and waiting out the hours for daylight. It’s like a watched pot. Sleeping always just makes life go by faster.

“Tyler,” the boy says, so quiet it’s almost like it hurts him to say. Like he’s giving a part of himself up. James doesn’t say anything for a beat or two, letting the silence convey the respect he feels for the information.

“Listen, Tyler. I know I’ve been kind of an asshole to you, but… man, don’t go gettin’ yourself hurt like that. What were you doing? Taking on those two guys like that? What were you thinkin’?”

Tyler doesn’t say anything, just ducks his head to hide his face from James completely, his arms tense like he wants to pull his hands away from James, but the warmth is too nice. Too necessary. James watches him, and a realization creeps up on him slow, sneaking up like horror.

He tastes bile at the back of his throat.

“Did they… did they hurt you?” he nearly whispers.

“Doesn’t matter,” Tyler says back, fast and shaky, and James closes his eyes, gritting his teeth in helpless fury.

If he had just let Tyler into the group, had just looked out for him from the very beginning, this would never have fucking happened.

“Hey,” James says, reaching up to cup the back of Tyler’s head and pulling until it knocks against his own, their breath warm and sour between them. He pets Tyler’s curls, absently finding the tangles with numb fingers working as gentle as he’s ever learned to be. “I’m gonna look after you from now on. I want you to stay right here, okay?”

“With… with you?” Tyler asks, watery, small. James can smell the salt of his tears.

“Yeah. Yeah, with me. Wherever I am, you’re gonna be there. Okay?”

There’s a pause and then Tyler is moving, his hands pushing from beneath James’s rank armpits to wrap around his back, and it’s distracting enough that James is actually surprised when Tyler climbs into his lap like a little kid, nestling down like James is some kind of big warm mama instead of a stick-thin ex-junkie who can barely even keep himself alive.

“Jesus Christ, kid,” he sighs, giving in and wrapping his arms around Tyler’s small body, pulling him in close as he turns them over onto their sides and tries to tuck them under the blanket and clothes, shielding them from the arctic night as much as possible. 

James covers them up until even their heads are hidden, and their breath makes it so warm so fast that his skin starts to thaw out, painful prickles breaking out all over his face. He’s aware now how close they are, how soft Tyler’s skin somehow is, how much warmer life can be when you have a pretty boy wrapped around you.

He can get used to this.

“Just so I know,” he ventures, forcing his voice to stay light, “how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Tyler says, his fingers moving over James’s neck in a back and forth rub, some kind of self-soothing motion that makes James feel sleepy and grateful that he’s already kinda cuddling.

He remembers snuggling with his mom. Remembers her hands in his hair, her voice reading bedtime stories. He remembers, and he’ll never forget.

“Coulda sworn you were twelve,” he mumbles, startling when Tyler pinches him on the back of the neck. “Ow! You little shit. It’s not my fault. Blame those big fuckin’ eyes of yours.”

Tyler laughs, just a huff but it’s a puff of dirty, hot air and a smile nestling in so close to James’s own, and that simple happiness has James almost smiling himself. For no goddamn reason.

“So, why’ve you been followin’ us? Surely you’ve met other people by now, right?” There’s no heat in the words, and he tries to push as much concern into them as possible so that Tyler will keep petting him. It works; and when those fingers start to out-right massage his neck, he closes his eyes and sighs, relaxing into it.

“Ran away from home,” Tyler says, sounding far-off, like he’s picturing it. “I just… I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I wasn’t going to let--I left. I just left. And it’s hard out here. You know? I-It’s… it just gets lonely. And I saw you guys one night. In Portland. You were sharing food out of a bag and you were laughing and I just… it looked so safe. You looked safe. I just. I just wanted that. To feel that.”

“Christ,” James sighs, hauling the kid closer and spreading his hands out on his little back, trying to hold as much of him at once as he can. If he wasn’t so dehydrated, he’d probably be fucking crying. “I’m not… I mean, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’ either, kid. It’s all day by day. But, if this is what you want--”

“It is,” Tyler rushes out, fingers pressing into James’s neck, gripping at the back of his long, stringy hair.

“Then. Then, alright. Okay. Just…” He takes a deep breath and shifts in just a little more until the tip of his nose touches a warm, full cheek, feeling the dampness of tears there. “Just go to sleep. Okay? We’ll figure shit out in the morning.”

He feels Tyler nod, feels the hitch of his breath and the way his arms stretch out to wrap around James’s neck, hugging him hard, clutching him. Feels that little face burrow into his neck, into the grime and sweat there, feels that hurt mouth press the tiniest breath of a kiss right there, just an angel kiss, but it seals James’s fucking fate. 

They’ll have to pry this kid out of his cold, dead arms.


End file.
